Shopify has announced that it will debut USDC payments on its platform, with early access opening immediately. The service is expected to reach other clients by the end of the year. The online shopping app is expected to process USDC payments on the Base network.
According to the CEO of Shopify Tobi Lutke, the company will partner with Coinbase to roll out payments with dedicated smart contracts. The USDC payment option will be available through Shopify Payments and Shop Pay. Coinbase held exploratory talks with Shopify in the past year, proposing USDC as a solution. Now, USDC may be available to millions of merchants, according to Justin Gainsley, payment product developer at Coinbase.
Shopify to roll out USDC payments
The payments for merchants on the platform will use the Commerce Payments Protocol, a collaboration between Coinbase and Shopify for an e-commerce standard for crypto. The Base version of USDC will rely mostly on Coinbase for its liquidity and switch to other crypto or fiat. The native integration of crypto into e-commerce is another step in mass adoption. The announcement arrived just days after Circle, the issuer of USDC, started trading as a public company on the NYSE.
USDC remains one of the widely used stablecoins, offering its users a higher level of security. There have been instances where the asset has been frozen, allowing authorities to recoup funds in cases of fraud and losses. This feature appealed to Shopify, making the asset suitable for mainstream fintech usage.
Stablecoins have been making crossovers into payment and fintech apps, especially after receiving regulatory clarity. USDC also returned to services like Stripe at the end of 2024. Before the native Shopify integration, Stripe was also offering merchants a tool to accept USDC payments. PayPal’s PYUSD also expanded its supply, while minting more stablecoins on the Stellar network. Tether’s USDT has also spread to multiple fintech apps, though targeting more niche markets.
Base set to offer cheap USDC payments
The new USDC rollout is expected to leverage the on-chain economy of Base. The team announced that the new payment gateways may become a convenient way to checkout and make payments, opening it up to all Base users. Base is the second most liquid L2 chain with over $3.7B in stablecoin supply. The supply of USDC is over 3.65M tokens, spread across over 4.2M holders.
Base has shown to be a chain for fun on-chain activity, allowing for small transactions and retail users. Most of the USDC on Base is native, with only around 14M tokens bridged from other chains. In total, USDC has about 61 billion tokens in supply and is accepted across the crypto ecosystem, including centralized and decentralized platforms. Base, on the other hand, offers the lowest possible gas fees, with no additional requirement to hold tokens or pay for gas.
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